Monday, August 27, 2012

A Polish Near Death Experience

Near Death
Experiences are experiences reported by a minority of people who have
clinically died, or come close to clinical death, and been revived. These
experiences typically involve a sense of the spirit leaving the body, the
experiencer observing his own body, seeing a radiant and loving light, being
drawn toward that light, often through a tunnel, being greeted by deceased
relatives, reaching a barrier of some kind, and deciding to return to the
physical body.

Dr.
Raymond A. Moody, Jr coined the term "near death experience" and
he's probably the most famous author to address the topic.

There
are many books and websites devoted to near death experiences. Just a few:

I've
read dozens of these accounts. They all contain some similar features. I read
one recently that was quite different from any others I'd ever read. The
experiencer didn't see a light, was not greeted by relatives, and did not reach
a barrier. Rather, the experiencer's experience was all about … Poland!

Excerpts
from this near death experience, below, with a link to the full experience.

***

Mira
G.

The NDE happened when I was on the operating table at St.
Vincent's Hospital in Lower Manhattan. I remember being put under and asked to
count backwards from 100. I know that I counted down to 96 and that the world
for me went black. The next thing that I remember is being very happy and very
safe. I was in a place that I loved with all of my heart.

I
was in my spirit in the Polish countryside and I could almost see the fields
during the summer just waiting to be harvested. It was a warm summer day, not
hot and humid the way that NYC can be, but warm, sunny and dry. I was above the
fields and I admired them but could not focus my eyes completely on them. I
wanted to see what kind of crops were growing, but again my eyes could not
focus that well. I saw a little mound of brown earth and then behind it I saw a
field of wheat. I saw green individual plants in another field, but I could not
make out what kind of plant it was, but I did notice that the earth was very
rich and could give birth to many good crops. The little green plants seemed to
be happy growing in the rich earth and being warmed in the sun.

There
was a kind of sunshine that one finds in Northern Europe during the summer. The
light is less direct because it is in the north, and it is more at an angle
then the sunshine in NYC during the summer. The sun therefore is less harsh and
much more warming, then heating. I imagined that I was one of the little green
plants and that I was also planted in the earth of my country and warmed in its
northern sunshine. I tried to see down the fields if there were houses, but all
I saw was a shack that was falling down.

There were no
modern houses, so I decided to sit in the shade of the shack for a few minutes.
Then I rose above the shack and saw the golden light from the wheat being
reflected back to sun. This time, I could see the individual wheat plants in
detail and at a distance of three feet. I could not believe that such wonderful
colors could be found in a wheat plant and to have that golden yellow reflect
the sun was just beautiful to see. I was above the shack and I looked at the
wheat field all golden in the sun. One could see for kilometers and all there
was blue sky of a summer day. At a distance I saw the blue cloudless sky with
birds flying around and chasing each other, I was jealous that the birds could
stay home in Poland and enjoy flying around in the sunshine.

I
saw some trees that must have the border of the property. The trees were tall
and they were full of dark green leaves. Each of them formed a kind of leafy
egg shaped green on top of a stem and some were closer to each other, but I
noticed the one tree that was away from the others in particular. It was a
mature tree, with large green leaves. I
looked at that tree and I said to myself how lucky this tree really is, because
it got to stay home and never was forced to leave Poland. The tree was
never uprooted, and I wondered what it like to be a human being that was never
uprooted. I rose further up above the field and saw that the trees were going
away from me. I knew that it was time and that something had to stop this
experience, I just panicked because I had to go back to where I really was.

After
being back in my body I heard the doctors screaming "she has stopped
breathing" and something like "we are losing her." There was
general panic in the operating room and could feel the stress of the nurses and
doctors. They were shaking me and calling my name to wake me up. I did come
back fully then and I was back on the operating table in my body at St.
Vincent's Hospital in NYC. I was devastated because when I was outside of my
body and in the Polish countryside, I was perfectly centered and I knew who I
was and what I was capable of doing in life. Nothing could have stopped me from
being the kind of human being that I was meant to be, because I was that human
being already within myself flying over the July fields of Poland.

Important note: I have
now lived for the past six years on the edge of a Polish village, 45 km west of
Warsaw and I get to see the countryside during all the seasons. But during the
summer it is the most beautiful. I walk on a dirt road along the fields with my
dogs and I sometimes stop to admire the views of the crops that run from end to
end of each field.

3 comments:

One theory of near-death experiences is that it is an adaptation. The dying brain is programmed to make the process as pleasant as possible. Of course, if the person does not complete the dying process, he or she can come back and recount the experience.

I think also it may be a product of stress. The brain is a truly amazing thing. In his "Into Thin Air", John Krakauer notes this of his exhausted hypoxic descent of Everest: "I was so far beyond ordinary exhaustion that I experienced a queer detachment from my body, as if were observing my descent from a few feet overhead. I imagined that I was dressed in a green cardigan and wing tips..."

When I broke my leg I had to wait for hours in casualty - for triage reasons - there had been a big pile up on the motorway and obviously those injured came first - and they gave me gas and air to help cope with the pain. I can remember a feeling of floating away from my body.

The experience above is lovely though - and makes me feel that the loss of the Paradise garden of Eden is perhaps encoded within us. We have never forgotten. And we long for the day we can return.

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